Sowing Secrets

by Ashley, Trisha

  Brushing past me, he strode in and dumped my luggage on the floor none too gently, then turned and surveyed me.

  ‘I can’t believe I let you do that to me again!’ he said furiously.

  I stared at him dumbly.

  ‘What is it with you? I’m OK for a bit of quick comfort on the rebound, but you can’t bear to wake up to the reality? I should have known better when I saw you chucking your lover out in the middle of the night!’

  And out he slammed again, practically grinding his teeth.

  Might As Well Live

  ‘You what?’ Nia said, when she popped round at lunchtime to see how I was. She stared incredulously at me with her dark, bright eyes. ‘Are you quite mad? I don’t mean sleeping with him—I get the “in need of comfort” idea, and there are sparks between you two anyway—but what possessed you to get up and leave without a word in the middle of the night?’

  ‘I just felt totally confused and disorientated and sort of frightened when I woke up. I think it’s because nothing’s real,’ I explained. ‘It came over me in the Caribbean, as if there’s a plate-glass wall between me and the world. I had it even worse just after I lost the baby, but I thought it was anaemia. Do you ever feel like that?’

  ‘No, you must be still short of iron or something—and you look like hell. Couldn’t Gabe see you weren’t yourself last night?’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ I confessed. ‘He was really sweet when he picked me up at the airport, and I—well, I don’t know—I just thought I would feel better in my old room at Fairy Glen. Only when I was there my mind kept going round and round in circles, and I felt so desolate and alone that in the end I couldn’t bear it. So I—I went and climbed into bed with him. I still can’t believe I did that!’

  ‘Neither can I!’ she replied, staring at me. ‘And did you get what you were looking for?’

  ‘I can’t really remember,’ I said evasively. ‘I’m so very tired, Nia. So tired, and everything is going round and round and round again.’ My words seemed to have started to slur into slow motion and my eyelids were trying to close.

  ‘That’s jet lag and booze,’ she said unsympathetically. ‘And haven’t you had enough yet? What is that stuff you’re drinking?’

  ‘Mudslide. Lovely stuff—last bottle. Last bottle ever,’ I said sadly, tipping it to see how much was in it, which was precious little. ‘Prosh…Prospero’s island—n’more rough magic for me.’

  ‘Just as well, you can’t afford to turn into a lush.’

  ‘Don’t be cross, Nia. I’m so very tired…tired of everything. I want to sleep and sleep and sleep…’

  Nia eyed me resignedly. ‘You go back to bed. Come round to Teapots at nine tomorrow when you’re back in your right mind and we’ll talk it all over with Carrie. Meanwhile, I’m going to go back to Plas Gwyn and have this out with Gabe, getting my friends drunk and exploiting them!’

  ‘He didn’t get me drunk, I’m quite capable of doing that myself,’ I pointed out with dignity.

  ‘Evidently.’

  ‘And I think I exploited him.’

  ‘It takes two to tango, Fran,’ she said severely.

  I remembered to give her the tinned racoon before she left, though I advised her not to take the lid off. Mine was still captive.

  ‘Once you let them out it’s never the same again,’ I told her, but she did and unceremoniously stuffed it into her pocket. I could tell she liked it, even though she’s not a fluffy-toy person.

  ‘Speaking of letting things out, have you done the hens? It didn’t sound like Gabe hung around long enough to this morning!’

  ‘No, he didn’t, but I remembered when I woke up and fed them. There were two eggs.’

  ‘Then eat them, they’ll do you good,’ she ordered.

  When she left she took every last aspirin and paracetamol in the house with her, even though I quoted Dorothy Parker and told her about my new take on suicide.

  When I resurfaced in the late afternoon I felt like hell—but, strangely, not like drinking any more alcohol…ever. My head was splitting, but since Nia had confiscated every headache remedy in the house I just had to suffer, until I thankfully remembered the first-aid kit in the bottom of my suitcase.

  After that, I drank a couple of pints of water and set about loading my holiday clothes into the washing machine, unpacking and putting everything away. Mal’s shirts always used to look so happy going round and round in the tumble dryer, as if they were waving at me…

  I brewed coffee, but I still wasn’t hungry. If my appetite doesn’t come back, eating myself to death might be a bit of a non-starter, and even if I hadn’t suddenly gone off alcohol I certainly wouldn’t fancy drinking myself to death, because there’s something so pathetic about a drunk.

  But when I took a good hard look at myself in the bathroom mirror I was pretty pathetic anyway. Gabe must have been either desperate or have strange taste in women, because some evil genie has trapped me inside the roly-poly, dumpling figure of someone else: a sad, pallid, puffy, exhausted little fortysomething that’s been taken down, dusted and then put back on the shelf.

  Hello, whoever you are—you can have your body back now.

  Then I remembered that I really am that dumped, roly-poly fortysomething: woe is me.

  In the shower my skin was so dry it felt like blotting paper and I worried I might just swell up and crumble, clogging the entire village’s sewerage system. Afterwards I anointed myself all over with tons of cocoa butter and then gingerly applied hypoallergenic face cream and cool witch hazel eye gel to my poor war zone of a complexion—though funnily enough it’s starting to become fresher-looking after its inadvertent skin peel.

  The sun and sea had made my hair the consistency of bleached pink candyfloss, but nothing that a gallon of conditioner wouldn’t cure. And at least now the allergy rash has gone you can see where my hair stops and my face begins.

  Rosie called me, and although I didn’t intend telling her what had happened yet—unloading on your children is so unfair—it all somehow came pouring out.

  Of course she immediately wanted to rush home and drive me crackers, like she usually does. ‘I thought he was being a total pig lately—but to leave you for his ex-wife! I mean, I’ve seen her pictures, and she isn’t half as pretty as you, Mum!’

  ‘Thank you, darling, but she is half the size—and Mal doesn’t seem to find me attractive any more.’

  ‘No, because he’s weird! Every other man does. Tom says you’re twice as pretty as when you were a student.’

  ‘When did he say that?’

  ‘Yesterday—email. What are you going to do, Mum? I mean, where do you stand about the house and everything?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m going to talk it all over with Nia and Carrie tomorrow. I’m not qualified for any kind of job that would pay enough to afford the huge mortgage on this place, so I think I’ll to have to sell it even though I hate to leave my roses and the studio, and I love St Ceridwen’s Well.’

  ‘You bought the studio and the roses,’ she reminded me.

  ‘I know, but I don’t think I can take them with me. Never mind, we’ll worry about it later.’

  ‘And you’re not really, really upset and depressed?’

  ‘No, of course not!’ I said brightly, and sang a snatch of ‘I Will Survive’ to reassure her. ‘How’s Colum?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said, and then clammed up as she usually does. I don’t know why she won’t say anything about her boyfriends; he seemed very nice.

  ‘By the way,’ she added, ‘my friend Star—you know, the one I met surfing?—well, she’s coming to stay with me next week, and I thought I’d bring her up for the weekend if that’s OK with you. Then she’s off back to Cornwall again.’

  ‘But won’t you have to take some time off from university?’

  ‘I don’t have much on Mondays. It’ll be OK.’ She paused. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen that gardener man since you got back, have you?’

&nb
sp; ‘You mean Gabe Weston? I…yes, actually, he picked me up from the airport, which was kind of him. And he’s been doing the hens and watering the roses while I was away. Nia and Rhodri have—well, they’re living together,’ I explained.

  ‘Oh, I saw that one coming on last time I was home,’ she said. ‘There was something about the way they kept looking at each other. Like you and Gabe Weston flirting right in front of me.’

  ‘Rosie! I did not flirt with him!’ I protested.

  ‘Oh, no? Well, that’s what it sounded and looked like to me!’

  ‘You’re imagining things,’ I said with dignity. ‘I’m not interested in men and I’m going to live a single life from now on. Why did you want to know if I’d seen him?’

  ‘Just interested in our local celebrity, that’s all,’ she said. ‘Did you know Granny shopped the Wevills to the police?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I forgot to ask Nia what’s happening. I thought she said they’d been arrested.’

  ‘They have, and charged with the poison-pen letters. I expect you’ll find out all about it tomorrow and you can give me the dirty details!’

  ‘You don’t know where Granny is, do you? Only there was no reply when I phoned to tell her I was back.’

  ‘A mini-cruise on the Rhine, or the Rhône, or somewhere,’ she said promptly. ‘A last-minute bargain, she said. And she’s got her round-the-world one all planned out and booked now. Wish I was going too!’

  She rang off reluctantly, but really, I’m not about to do anything stupid however miserable I am.

  I sort of half hoped, half feared that Gabe would come round again for a rematch, but he didn’t, and feeling sad, lonely and empty I finally opened my tinned racoon just for something to cuddle and took it back to bed, where I cried myself to sleep.

  I woke early next morning feeling much better—which was just as well, since there were two letters with Caribbean stamps on the mat.

  One was in Mal’s handwriting, but I’d have known it was from him anyway, because on the back he’d added: ‘Save the stamp!’

  Hello? He asks me for a divorce with one breath, and wants me to save my used stamps for him with the next?

  Dear Fran,

  This should get there about the same time as you do. Hope you got back all right and the Caribbean holiday made up a bit for the shock. I know you will be feeling more reasonable by now, and have realised that things between us just weren’t working out. Hadn’t been for a long, long time.

  My solicitor will be sending you some forms to sign. If we are in agreement, the cottage, and the equity in it, will be transferred to your name, and there’s no reason the divorce shouldn’t go through fast. You might want to reconsider Justin’s offer for the cottage—it’s a good one.

  Finally, would you please pack up any personal possessions and I will arrange to have them removed to Mother’s house? The metal box containing my stamp collection needs to be parcelled up and sent out to me by some kind of insured special delivery—they will advise you of the best way at the post office.

  Mal

  As if that wasn’t enough, Brideshead Revisited had also penned a friendly little note.

  Dear Fran,

  I thought I’d just like to tell you how sorry I am that it didn’t work out between you and Mal, but from what he’s told me you must have realised that things weren’t going well for a year or two. He’s a great guy, and I know how much you relied on his support, but a man appreciates an independent woman when he gets to a certain age. This time round I’m sure it will work—we have so many interests in common now.

  No hard feelings?

  Alison Morgan

  That bit about his ‘supporting’ me makes me sound like a clinging vine, and reminded me of how he’d more or less implied on Cayman that I’d only married him for what I could get.

  I was a few minutes late arriving at Teapots, since I’d had someone out to look at my poor dead-as-a-dodo little car, though it turned out it simply needed a wire to the battery replacing. I could see he thought the new wire was the most valuable bit of the whole vehicle.

  Nia had already filled Carrie in on what had been happening—including some of the embarrassing bits I might have left out myself, like what Gabe said to me next morning when he was really angry.

  ‘You do seem to have a habit of using him for comfort when you’re dumped,’ Nia said.

  ‘You can’t call twice a habit,’ I protested. ‘And the first time I slept with him I thought I still loved Tom, and this time…’ I examined my inner workings and made a discovery. ‘This time I woke up confused because I didn’t love Mal! And although Gabe had been really nice to me I supposed he didn’t want to reject me after Mal just had.’

  ‘You and Gabe have got something going,’ Nia said. ‘Maybe you don’t realise it, but when your eyes meet you stare at each other for ages. It’s quite embarrassing—and he looks at you all the time. He was even flirting with you on the phone to Cayman; I heard him.’

  ‘He didn’t say a thing, except about roses and the hens,’ I pointed out, going pink. ‘You’re imagining it.’

  ‘No, I’m not, and it’s not what he said, it was the way he said it.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t matter now, because his opinion of me is clearly that I will sleep with anyone—he jumped to conclusions about Tom, didn’t he?’

  ‘Fran, he’s jealous! I think you are going to have to apologise to him, because he’s been going around like a bear with a sore head since you got back. In fact, Carrie and I think it might just be confession time, don’t you?’

  ‘Confession time? You mean everything? Rosie?’

  ‘Yes. Tell him you’re sorry you walked out on him the other night, and you wished you’d stayed till morning this time, and that Tom was trying to get into your house, not being let out—and explain about Rosie perhaps being his child.’

  ‘Nia, I couldn’t possibly!’ I said, appalled.

  ‘But just think how good it would be not to have secrets any more!’ Carrie suggested. ‘Nothing to hide. And he’s such a nice man—don’t you think you owe it to him?’

  ‘Well, there is that, I suppose,’ I admitted. ‘Maybe you’re both right—I’ll think about it. After all, it doesn’t matter if Mal finds out about it now, does it? There’s just Rosie to consider, but I’m not sure how she would take it…She didn’t really seem to like him.’

  ‘She’s never liked any man who showed interest in you,’ observed Nia.

  I sighed. ‘All I ever wanted was a quiet life in the country, doing my designs and cartoons, loving Mal, looking after Rosie, my hens and my roses—where did I go wrong?’

  ‘Nia’s told me about the cottage, and that you might have to sell it,’ Carrie said. ‘It’s such a shame.’

  ‘I will have to sell it—there’s no way I can afford to keep it, especially since no maintenance is likely to be forthcoming. I don’t earn enough to cover it.’

  ‘If you do, then I’ve got a suggestion which is better than nothing—we’ve both got suggestions,’ Carrie said.

  ‘Yes, I’m living up at Plas Gwyn now,’ Nia said, slightly self-consciously, ‘so you could rent my little cottage from me.’

  ‘And I’m tired of being cooped up over the café, and since our gardens back on to each other I thought I could buy your house and put a door through the wall into mine.’

  ‘But, Carrie, it’s worth quite a bit and—’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got money,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘And just think, you could still use the studio and see to your roses, and even, if you needed a place to live, have my flat over the shop!’

  I didn’t know what to say, but my eyes were swimming.

  ‘Have a madeleine,’ urged Carrie, pushing a plate of comfort food towards me. ‘Or a chocolate brownie.’

  ‘No, thanks, not just now—I’m not hungry,’ I said, and they both stared at me as though I’d turned green and grown another head. ‘It’s just…hard to take in! A complete rescue package�
�if you’re both sure?’

  ‘Of course we’re sure—unless you get a better offer,’ Carrie said.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said severely. ‘If you mean Gabe, that was a one-off.’

  ‘Mal’s friend Justin?’

  ‘In his dreams!’

  ‘What were you saying about trying to commit suicide by gluttony last night?’ Nia demanded suddenly.

  I shrugged. ‘When Mal dropped his bombshell and went off, that Dorothy Parker poem about suicide popped into my head—you know, the one that lists all the different methods, and then concludes that you might as well live?’

  ‘Yes, because all the alternatives have a nasty catch to them. But you weren’t seriously thinking of suicide, were you, Fran?’

  ‘No, not really. Not in the short term, anyway.’

  ‘The short term? What on earth do you mean?’ asked Carrie.

  ‘Well, since the only things I really wanted to eat and drink out there were rum cake, Mudslide and sugary soft drinks, I thought eating myself to death might be quite fun.’

  ‘But you must have eaten something beside cake!’ demanded Nia.

  ‘Not really, but it’s OK, I’ve given up any idea of eating myself to death on purpose. I’ll probably just do that naturally when my appetite comes back.’

  ‘Have you eaten anything this morning?’ she asked.

  ‘Come on, Nia! Do I look starving? There’s enough fat on me to keep me going for six months.’

  ‘No there isn’t—you’ve actually lost weight. And that’s not the point, anyway—you still need to eat properly. I think you’re run down.’

  ‘How can I be run down when I’m the size of a medium minke whale?’

  ‘It’s not size, it’s content. Vitamins and minerals and stuff.’

  ‘All right, I’ll buy some multivitamins next time I’m in town.’